ConDems cave in over Labour’s free swimming policy

Thursday 26th August 2010.

With Wirral’s remaining Liberal councillors (devastated after losing 25% of their seats in May) now meekly propping up a Tory-led administration it looked as though the national ‘ConDem’ policy of ending free swimming would be rubber stamped.

But a massive public outcry put huge pressure on the ConDems not to end Labour’s free swimming initiative. Added to this an on-line petition, initiated by Liscard’s Cllr Darren Dodd, obliged the Tory-led council to concede that Labour had been right all along in providing this facility for pensioners and school children.

“Cllr Green admitted, at a Scrutiny Committee, that no public consultation whatever had taken place over the Cabinet’s decision to cut £3.9m from the Council’s budget in the current year.”

The Labour Group had ‘called in’ this decision for further consideration. Labour’s ‘call in’ would have referred back to Cabinet the budget cuts to schools and to the Working Neighbourhood Fund, which has been used to create over 100 apprenticeships, and would have required the Cabinet to carry out meaningful consultation about these cuts with residents and key stakeholders such as small businesses, unemployed people and headteachers and governors.

Labour’s proposal was opposed by Tory and Liberal members on the Council Excellence Committee who voted to endorse the original Cabinet decision.

Speaking after the Committee meeting, Cllr Foulkes stated: “I am amazed at the utter hypocrisy of Cllr Green. One minute he is trumpeting his coalition’s desire to engage in public consultation around the future of Council services, yet he admitted at tonight’s call-in meeting that no consultation had taken place over £3.9m of saving and that the recommendations had been written by a small group of senior Council officers. I am also appalled at the actions of the Liberal Democrats who agreed our budget for 2010/11 in March of this year, but are now slavishly following their Tory partners’ decision to make damaging cuts to front-line services such as education and help for the unemployed and small businesses. They should be ashamed of themselves.”

This website uses cookies to improve your experience. They are small text files we put in your browser to track usage of our site but they don’t tell us who you are. By using this website we'll assume you're ok with this.AcceptRead More